AT&T offers free Wi-Fi and superfast broadband
AT&T said Wednesday that it will soon offer its broadband subscribers unlimited free Wi-Fi access in its hot spots, as well as a new supercharged 10Mbps tier of service.
Free Wi-Fi will be offered only to AT&T broadband subscribers who subscribe to services with 1.5Mbps downloads or higher. Subscribers who only have the company's wireless service will not be offered free Wi-Fi.
This means that users of the iPhone, which has Wi-Fi built in and is exclusively sold in the U.S. for AT&T's network, will only be able to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi offer if they happen to live in a part of the country where AT&T broadband is offered and if they subscribe to that service.
AT&T has more than 10,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in the U.S. in places like airports, McDonald's restaurants, Barnes & Noble bookstores, coffee shops, and sporting venues. The carrier has been offering free Wi-Fi access to its higher-speed broadband customers since last year.
AT&T's move could be seen as a way to entice subscribers to bundle cell phone service with their broadband service. But it might also be an attempt to compete with other cellular providers like T-Mobile, which offers subscribers access to its more than 8,000 Wi-Fi hot spots. T-Mobile also has a service that allows its customers the ability to switch between Wi-Fi and the cell phone network while they are at home.
AT&T also announced it would add a new faster tier of service with 10Mbps downloads and 1.5Mbps uploads to its U-verse customers. U-verse is the newly upgraded network that AT&T is building to deliver TV and broadband over the same Internet connection to the home. Bundled with U-verse TV, the new, faster broadband service costs $55 a month. These subscribers also qualify to receive free Wi-Fi access.
Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E-mail Maggie. 
I'll stick to an ISP who doesn't dabble in my packets.
subscribers for at least a year. I have used it at the local Barnes &
Noble Bookstore but place other than there.
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We are LAGGING behind in terms of speed. Japan and Korea I can understand being wired to the hilt, but come on... how sad is it that France is kicking our ass in terms of speed. They are average in at almost 45mbs and AT&T is claiming 10mbs is SUPERFAST?
So as I said, who is AT&T trying to fool? Sure isn't me... and as already stated, I'd rather keep my distance and my data packets out of the paws of AT&T. Thanks but no thanks.
If you don't have insane speed and protocol neutrality, well, you don't have anything. If all you do is look at web pages and check email, you're not even going to need to buy a connection... which means the people who have them will be us; the ones who use torrents and VoIP; --and the ones who hold grudges.
They best be getting their act together.
It might be worth the price of a 1.5M DSL connection to get free Wifi at those locations if one travels a lot.
your machine to copy all packets going through your machine
directly to the White House, then AT&T won't have to continue to
invest in data splitters. Lower their cost and they'll lower their
prices, right?
Papers please.
I'm glad it will soon be free at ALL their hotspots.
- by somebodyelse--2008 September 4, 2008 10:22 PM PDT
- I've had AT&T DSL for over 3 years and am paying $29.00 per month yet I have to agree to pay an additional $1.99 for this FREE WI-FI! Give me a break!
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